


The Hardest Word

by shimotsuki



Series: Light the Corners of My Mind [3]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Estrangement, Friendship, Gen, Marauders Era (Harry Potter)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-03
Updated: 2019-11-03
Packaged: 2021-01-20 23:49:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 212
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21290195
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shimotsuki/pseuds/shimotsuki
Summary: 1976:  Sirius sneaks into the hospital wing, late one night.
Series: Light the Corners of My Mind [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1489523
Kudos: 7





	The Hardest Word

Apologies were for the meek, not for the bold. They were for people who didn't feel their place in the world (on top of the world), viscerally, through the soles of their boots.

They were _certainly_ not for the fearless heir to the House of Black.

They...

They were bloody damn _difficult_, is what they were.

Especially now that Sirius had done the worst possible thing he could have imagined in a hundred lifetimes.

He hated the way Remus always looked past him. Sat with Evans in classes, instead of where he _belonged_. Smiled politely (distantly, from across a hundred lifetimes), no matter what ridiculous or asinine remark Sirius threw his way. Trapped himself inside the Shack, because with only Prongs and Wormtail there, everyone agreed it was too dangerous for the wolf to run free (and everyone, even Peter, looked sidewise at Sirius when that pronouncement was made).

The one time he had slipped and said _Moony_, Remus had sat frozen for a full twenty seconds before standing up and walking away. Walking _away._

"I'm sorry," he whispered now, in the hospital wing, silent as stone and lit only by the cold silver of a waning gibbous moon. "I'm sorry—sorry—sorry—" 

But he would be gone before Remus woke. 

__

—_fin_—

**Author's Note:**

> This ficlet was originally posted at the **sirius_black** community on LiveJournal for the Dog Days of Summer event in August 2015.


End file.
